Warsaw’s Nożyk Synagogue, the only Jewish house of worship in the Polish capital that survived the Holocaust, was hit with three firebombs overnight Tuesday.
The attack caused slight damage and no injuries, according to the Associated Press.
Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich told the AP that the synagogue was spared “by tremendous luck or miracle.”
Israel’s Ambassador to Poland Yacov Livne said, “Outrageous antisemitic attacks such as this cannot be tolerated. The perpetrators must be found and punished.”
Polish President Andrzej Duda condemned the “shameful attack,” adding, “There is no place for antisemitism in Poland! There is no place for hatred in Poland!”
Some 3 million Polish Jews were exterminated in Nazi death camps located in occupied Poland during World War II.
The Warsaw Ghetto was established by Nazi forces in 1940 as a segregated and confined area where hundreds of thousands of Jews were forced to live in extremely cramped and inhumane conditions.
In 1943, as the Nazis began the final stages of liquidating the ghetto and deporting its inhabitants to extermination camps, the ghetto’s Jewish inhabitants, primarily from various resistance organizations, initiated armed resistance despite being significantly outnumbered and outgunned by.
The face-off lasted more than a month before the Nazis brutally suppressed the uprising and the ghetto was razed to the ground. Still, the episode has become a symbol of Jewish resistance and the struggle for human rights and freedom during the Holocaust.
